A small piece of sodium metal is placed in a flask of chlorine gas. A little water helps expose the sodium so it can react with the chlorine gas. The reaction releases a lot of heat as the ionic ...

Dot and cross diagrams help us to model when ions are formed from atoms. Here’s an example using sodium and chlorine. They form ions which bond to form sodium chloride.

This is called ionic bonding. This animation shows a very simplified model of how sodium and chloride ions are formed. Note: In order to simplify the model of ionic bonding, a single atom of sodium ...